ing whatever the matter with me."

"Will you be a good boy and keep quiet," rejoined she, emphasizing
each word by a gentle tap on my head with her crochet-needle.

"Well, if it can amuse you to have me lying here and playing sick,"
muttered I, "then, of course, I will do anything to please you."

"That is right," said she, and gave me a friendly nod.

So I lay still for a long while, until I came once more to think of my
wonderful spectacles, which had turned the venerable professor into a
parrot. I thought I owed Mabel an apology for what I had done to her
father, and I determined to ease my mind by confiding the whole story
to her.

"Mabel," I began, raising myself on my elbow, "I want to tell you
something, but you must promise me beforehand that you will not be
angry with me."

"Angry with you, Jamie?" repeated she, opening her bright eyes wide in
astonishment. "I never was angry with you in my life."

"Very well, then. But I have done something very bad, and I shall
never have peace until I have confided it all to you. You are so very
good, Mabel. I wish I could be as good as you are."

Mabel was about to interrupt me, but I prevented her, and continued:

"Last night, as I was going home from your house, the moonlight was so
strangely airy and beautiful, and without quite intending to do it, I
found myself taking a walk through the gorge. There I saw some curious
little lights dancing over the ground, and I remembered the story of
the peasant who had caught the gnome. And do you know what I did?"

Mabel was beginning to look apprehensive.

"No, I can't imagine what you did," she whispered.

"Well, I lifted my cane, struck at one of the lights, and, before I
knew it, there lay a live gnome on the ground, kicking with his small
legs."

"Jamie! Jamie!" cried Mabel, springing up and gazing at me, as if she
thought I had gone mad.

Then there was an unwelcome shuffling of feet in the hall, the door
was opened, and the professor entered with the doctor.

"Papa, papa!" exclaimed Mabel, turning to her father. "Do you know
what Jamie says? He says he saw a gnome last night in the gorge, and
that--"

"Yes, I did!" cried I, excitedly, and sprang up to seize my hat. "If
nobody will believe me, I needn't stay here any longer. And if you
doubt what I have been saying, I can show you--"

"My dear sir," said the doctor.

"My dear boy," chimed in the professor, and seized me round the waist
to prevent me fro